In one of the most holy weeks in the Christian calendar, a report says that in just over a generation the number of people attending Church of England Sunday services will fall to less than a tenth of what they are now.

Christian Research, the statistical arm of the Bible Society, claimed that by 2050 Sunday attendance will fall below 88,000, compared with just under a million now.

The controversial forecast, based on a "snapshot" census of church attendances, has been seized upon by secular groups as proof that the established church is in decline. But the Church of England has rejected the figures, saying they were incomplete and ignored new ways of worshipping outside the church network.

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Keith Porteous-Wood of the National Secular Society said: "Church attendance has already been in decline for over 60 years, all over Britain, in all major denominations and across all age groups, except the over-65s. Independent statisticians now have enough data to predict confidently that the decline will continue until Christianity becomes a minority sect of largely elderly people, in little more than a generation."

In their prayers. I believe it will be just the opposite. I heard a radio announcer ask a futurist expert recently if they could suggest one thing to people what would it be - she said, get right with the Lord.

Keith Porteous-Wood of the National Secular Society said: "Church attendance has already been in decline for over 60 years, all over Britain, in all major denominations and across all age groups, except the over-65s.

People will go somewhere for their "spiritual needs". When the communists in China and Russia tried to exterminate religion, they got worship of Lenin and Stalin (well their slowly rotting corpses anyhow) in Russia. Communism fell and Christianity came back in massive force. China had Mao and his little red book and when communism weakened slightly in rushed Christianity and Falun Gong as real hope for the future.

The firghtening possibility for UK is that their spiritual needs might be met by Islam in the future.

I suppose it sort of depends on whether you believe less church attendence is causing the decline, or a symptom of the decline. Certainly religious belief is not declining - quite on the contrary, in spite of what National Secular Society fondly hopes.

You can almost feel the glee in Mr Porteus-Wood’s voice. What kind of person gets a kick out of witnessing other people’s distress? It’s a strange thing...secularists love to ridicule religous institutions and people, but religious folk are largely unconcerned about secular groups (apart from offering help).

The great strength of the Church of England (and in spite of all the predictions, it continues to survive and in fact is very good at introducing new initiatives) is that it is a very “broad” Church...there really is an enormous variation in style and theological position.

Unfortunately, that inclusiveness, as you say, is also its biggest weakness.

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